The romanian healthcare system back into the limelight

The repair works at the Giulesti maternity ward and as well as the closing down of a similar intensive care unit in Bucharest for sanitation reasons have caused the overcrowding of the other maternity wards in the capital Bucharest.

Three of them have already announced they ran out of free incubators. Consequently they cannot hospitalize pregnant women with risk of early delivery.

On Monday, the general mayor of Bucharest, doctor Sorin Oprescu, announced that the authorities would begin carrying out controls in all the hospitals managed by the Bucharest municipality.

Meanwhile the state of the infants who survived the fire at the Giulesti maternity ward is stable but serious.

The doctors at the Grigore Alexandrescu hospital, who are monitoring their state, say they will be able to give a clear verdict in only one week time. The infants have burns on about 70% of their bodies.

Newspapers continue to write about the tragedy in Giulesti. Even after one week, central newspapers still write about the situation of the Romanian healthcare system which is on the verge of collapse.

"We are not concerned about figures but about the life of infants" the daily paper GANDUL quotes doctor Radu Balanescu, the director of the Grigore Alexandrescu hospital, as saying.

He says that medical care for a premature baby involves very high costs and the chronic under-financing of the Romanian healthcare system affects patients and doctors alike.

Patients have to buy their own medicines and sanitary products while doctors are faced with the lack of equipment and materials necessary in a hospital. Not to mention the drop in salaries and the poor professional training of many doctors.

The daily paper Adevarul carries the opinions of several Romanian doctors: “We work in extremely dangerous conditions. When hired, we only receive a white coat, half a liter of medicinal alcohol and a pack of absorbent cotton.”

According to a study made for the Sanitary Solidarity Federation almost 80% of the medical staff say they do not have medical instruments, hospitals are understaffed and risk contamination.

(Radio România Internaţional, Serviciul în limba engleză).